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Silence and Meditation! The Minimalist Challenge

Officially day two! Day one was internet silence. Day two is meditation.

Day 1 – Stay offline for one day

I become annoyed at the internet rather quickly so being without it for one day was quite nice. I wrote down a list of all the things I needed/wanted to look up and after a day I realised they were all pretty dumb things. There were some times where the internet would have sped up certain parts of my day. When I do academic readings for my course I usually use the internet for definitions of ridiculous words that don’t look like words but today I used an actual dictionary. And it felt nice. I think I even took in the words more quickly using the dictionary.

So I didn’t really miss it.

Having said that, it was quite tricky to break a habit that’s been drilled into me. I found myself clicking on Facebook as a reflex of turning on my computer and phone.

I’ll probably carry on being offline for the majority of my working day. Having proven to myself that I don’t actually need the internet for anything other than distractions so I might be able to develop a new habit to try and counter my old one. No more internet in the mornings (at least). That should be a start of something.

Day 2 – Meditate for 15 minutes

Now on to meditation…

I find it difficult. I’ve done it before. I’ll try it again. Though in all truthfulness I only lasted 4 minutes. And I’ll try to explain why without offending anybody. For me being alone in my head is particularly hard and that seems to be the whole point of meditation. Settling in somewhere safe in your mind, unpicking the webs, dusting the shelves, opening the windows. In my mind, I can’t even get in the door to do any of that stuff. There’s a block, one that I’ve created for myself but it’s there none the less. I think meditation is a skill that I do not currently possess so starting a 15 minutes seems a little advanced.

But…

I got myself an app… (I know but shh) so hopefully I’ll start learning how to be alone in my mind and I’ll check back in when I’ve completely day 2… But for now let’s just say I gave it a go and I’ve got 11 minutes left!